Monday, September 14, 2015

A PEACH OF A PAIR

Last year, I was having a
glass of wine with my editor who wanted to know what was next for me. I told her, I’d thought about writing a
sequel to The Wisdom of Hair, but I wasn’t thrilled with the storyline that had
my protagonist barefoot and pregnant when the first novel had ended when she’d
just had her first child. “So, what else do you have?” my editor asked.

I wanted to wow her with
another quirky tale and a great original title, so I pitched a story I’d
started several years ago about two elderly spinster sisters called A Peach of
a Pair. The idea for the story came from my great great aunt who traveled from
the bottom of southwest Georgia to Arkansas to see a faith healer in the late
1940’s. Women didn’t travel alone, and there weren’t a lot of women on the
busses. So, to be on the safe side, she rode the whole way to Little Rock with
her arms crossed and a hatpin under each arm. If a man got too close to her or
fell asleep and his head flopped onto her shoulder, she’d jab him with the pin.
Unfortunately, when she got to her destination, she found out the faith healer
had been run out of the state, and she got back on the bus and went home.

While the hatpin incident isn’t in A Peach of a Pair, the idea of traveling
a great distance for healing is. I loved the idea of setting out on an arduous
journey full of hope and faith that there is healing on the other end. That’s
what happens to poor Lurleen, the eldest sister, who is dying of congestive
heart failure, but not because she wants to go on this trip. Her sister Emily,
took something from her when they were barely twenty.

As Emily says, “What happened to Teddy was Emily’s fault, and she’d paid
for it a thousand times over, losing her mother to a broken heart. And the
seven years Lurleen lived in the same house as Emily but didn’t speak to her,
didn’t take anything from her hand. The shunning wasn’t a religious edict.
Goodness no, they were raised Presbyterian. But Lurleen had taken right to the
practice. Even with the gravity of events, Emily was sure it couldn’t last, but
she’d been wrong.” Even fifty years
later, Emily wants to right the scales so badly, she badgers poor Lurleen into
getting on a Greyhound bus and riding all the way from Camden, South Carolina to
Palestine, Texas to see a faith healer.

My editor loved the title, loved the story so much, I thought she would buy
it on the spot, but then she said, “Where’s your young protagonist?” The truth
is, when you publish you’re put into a box. All authors are because it’s easier
for publishers to sell us that way. We can’t just be storytellers, which is
what I wanted to be. I was so excited about my pitch to her, I’d forgotten
Penguin put me in the sweet Southern box complete with a young protagonist.

So I did what every author does; I made her up on the fly. “Uh. Her name is
Nettie Gilbert and she’s a ‘Bama belle in her last semester at Columbia
College, and, uh, she receives an invitation to her baby sister’s wedding back
home. BUT her own fiancé is the groom. So she quits school and goes to work for
two old maids in Camden, South Carolina and the bus trip for healing
ensues.”

The interesting thing about this is, in the original version of the story,
Nettie was a young girl on the bus, but she was also a plot device to hear the
sister’s stories, to understand the riff, and their complex sisterhood. When I
started to write, I was a little concerned that Nettie would be overpowered by
Emily and Lurleen’s great big voices, but it turned out Nettie held her own and
then some, even though Emily and Lurleen do hijack the story from time to time.
But the story worked and turned out to be an examination of an indestructible
sisterhood and a wild ride to forgiveness.

"Palmetto Moon"
inspired "The Huffington Post" to rave, It is always nice to discover
a new talented author and Kim Boykin is quite a find. Now, she delivers a novel
of a woman picking up the pieces of her life with the help of two spirited,
elderly sisters in South Carolina.

April, 1953. Nettie Gilbert
has cherished her time studying to be a music teacher at Columbia College in
South Carolina, but as graduation approaches, she can’t wait to return to her
family and her childhood sweetheart, Brooks, in Alabama. But just days before
her senior recital, she gets a letter from her mama telling her that Brooks is
getting married . . . to her own sister.

Devastated, Nettie drops out
of school and takes a job as live-in help for two old-maid sisters, Emily and
Lurleen Eldridge. Emily is fiercely protective of the ailing Lurleen, but their
sisterhood has weathered many storms. And as Nettie learns more about their
lives on a trip to see a faith healer halfway across the country, she’ll
discover that love and forgiveness will one day lead her home.

It might seem cruel to send this letter along with a
proper invitation, but I couldn’t bring myself to call you, and I wasn’t given
much notice regarding this matter. I also know you well enough to know you
would have to see the invitation to truly believe it. Although I do regret not
having enough time to have them engraved.

I’m sorry to be the one to give you the news about
Brooks and Sissy. I love you, Nettie, and I love your sister. I’m not condoning
her behavior or the fact that she is in the family way, but you are blood. You
are sisters. No man can break that bond, not even Brooks.

There’s money and a bus ticket paper-clipped to the
invitation. I’ve checked the schedules. You should be able to leave Columbia on
Thursday the week of the wedding after your morning classes and get back by
Sunday night. I know how you hate to miss class, and if you are also missing
some wonderful end-of-the-year party, I’m sorry. So very sorry.

But the milk has been spilled, Nettie. Come home and
stand up with your sister. She needs you. She’s a wreck, and it makes me worry
about the baby.

Just come home.

Love,

Mother

*****

Almost
everything she learned about writing, she learned from her grandpa, an oral
storyteller, who was a master teacher of pacing and sensory detail. He held
court under an old mimosa tree on the family farm, and people used to come from
all around to hear him tell stories about growing up in rural Georgia and
share his unique take on the world.

As a
stay-at-home mom, Kim started writing, grabbing snip-its of time in the car
rider line or on the bleachers at swim practice. After her kids left the nest,
she started submitting her work, sold her first novel at 53, and has been
writing like crazy ever since.

While her
heart is always in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, she lives in Charlotte and has a heart
for hairstylist, librarians, and book junkies like herself.

Would love to hear from you, say hello and leave your blog address - I'll visit, but please take with you my undying gratitude that you stopped by for a read. Be well, be happy, and may your blog surfing bring you joy!